RE: RE: Space Wars

I think we will be fine with our current monitors for a long time.
The real advantage to having more computing power is the ability to do more
behind-the-scene calculations. Think how cool games like battle zone would
be if we could incorporate hidden line removal.

If someone ever decides to finish the "vector driver on a pci (or isa) card"
project, we would be able to do all kinds of cool games that utilize trig
functions and other complex calculations, but still have very simple
screens. (not to mention we could program in C instead of assembly)

-jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Justin Monast [mailto:jmonast@naughtydog.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 3:51 PM
To: vectorlist@synthcom.com
Subject: RE: VECTOR: RE: Space Wars

        This I all very cool, but at what point are we going to need faster
monitors to drive all these vectors:)

P.S. Something like this would be great for the vectrex!!

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-vectorlist@synthcom.com
[mailto:owner-vectorlist@synthcom.com]On Behalf Of Clay Cowgill
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2000 2:22 PM
To: vectorlist@synthcom.com
Subject: Re: VECTOR: RE: Space Wars

>I too am wondering why a co-processor is needed. To say "he's doing real"
>hard stuff doesn't justify adding a co-processor. Just don't do such an
>elaborate collision detection. Here's a suggestion:

No offense intended, but you're kind-of missing the point. ;-) Think big
picture: We're trying to build a platform that just plugs into a Space
Duel/Gravitar that will encourage people to write new games for the system
hardware and sell them on little "cartridges" that plug into some slots on
the board. Kinda like a Vector Neo-Geo if you will...

With some tricks and compromises I'm sure you could probably come "close
enough" to do a version of Space Wars on SD hardware, but for around $10
bucks in parts we can add a math-coprocessor that concievably makes games
that are *not* possible now, possible later on... Atari had math
acceleration (and moved to the 6809) for a reason-- more compute power for
the game...

People have a tendency not to finish projects. Anything that we do that
makes it easier to finish a game is probably a good thing 'cause that's one
more toy for all of us to play with. ;-) Adding additional RAM and ROM, and
even math-acceleration should make it easier to code on the platform without
needing such massive investments of time to squeeze ever last cycle out of
the system.

-Clay
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** To UNSUBSCRIBE from vectorlist, send a message with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the
** message body to vectorlist-request@synthcom.com. Please direct other
** questions, comments, or problems to neil@synthcom.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** To UNSUBSCRIBE from vectorlist, send a message with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the
** message body to vectorlist-request@synthcom.com. Please direct other
** questions, comments, or problems to neil@synthcom.com.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
** To UNSUBSCRIBE from vectorlist, send a message with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the
** message body to vectorlist-request@synthcom.com. Please direct other
** questions, comments, or problems to neil@synthcom.com.
Received on Thu Feb 3 18:16:41 2000